The Border Kingdom

by NURKSE, D.

• ISBN13: 9780307268020
• ISBN10: 0307268020
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-08-05
• Publisher: Knopf

Summary

In a collection of urgent and intimate poems, D. Nurkse explores the biblical past and the terrifying politics of the present with which it resonates, the legacy of fathers and the flawed kingdoms they leave their sons. In "Ben Adan," a stunning poem in the opening sequence of the collection, we witness the stirring drama between a captor and the prisoner commanded to dig his own grave ("perhaps in a moment / he will lift me up / and hold me trembling, / more scared than I / and more relieved"). "After a Bombing" examines children's drawings as deep symbolic reactions to 9/11. The subtly majestic "Lament for the Makers of Brooklyn" builds the poignant case for a lost world: "Where is Policastro the locksmith now?" the poet asks. "Half-blind, he wore two pairs of glasses / held together by duct tape, / . . . / afterward the key turned / for you but not for me." A poet of unique force and sensitivity, Nurkse refuses to pass over the marginal characters and corners of the world, attuned to the scraps of beauty or insight they might offer up in the midst of moral darkness. InThe Border Kingdomhe has given us an exceptionally powerful collection of poemsunfailingly rich in imagery, undaunted in subject and spirit. Jericho Sometimes in a high window a white curtain knotted against itself gives a glimpse of the lovers as they were before the war: with great concentration and silence they undo a mother-of-pearl snap while a cat perched on the sill looks down with burning eyes.

Author Biography

D. Nurkse is the author of eight previous books of poetry. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, two grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Tanne Foundation award, and two awards from Poetry magazine. He has also written widely on human rights. He lives in Brooklyn.

Table of Contents

The Age of Great Crusades
Jericho	p. 3
Albi	p. 4
The Gate of Abraham	p. 5
Ben Adan	p. 8
The Limbo of the Fathers
In the Hold	p. 13
Exile's Child	p. 14
The Cave Behind the Torrent	p. 15
Driving to Canaan with My Father	p. 17
The Prize	p. 18
The Anti-Death	p. 19
Sacrifice	p. 20
Practice	p. 22
The Adversary	p. 26
August Snow	p. 29
The Limbo of the Children
Nights in a Border Town	p. 33
Hitching to Mount Hebron	p. 34
Canaan	p. 38
At High Falls	p. 39
Mount Tabor	p. 42
The Border Range	p. 44
Return to Underhill Road	p. 45
The child	p. 47
Lament for the Makers of Brooklyn	p. 50
The Deferment	p. 55
Rosal	p. 57
Two Small Empires	p. 62
The Shelter	p. 64
The Gods
Giants Versus Angels	p. 67
Autopoiesis	p. 69
A Marriage in Belmont	p. 71
Late Summer	p. 73
Picnic by the Inland Sea	p. 74
Three Naps at Walker Point	p. 75
The Missing	p. 76
After a Bombing	p. 77
Survivors	p. 79
In the Year of Circular Marches	p. 80
Liberation in Winter	p. 82
Letter from Solange	p. 83
Parousia	p. 86
The Gods	p. 88
A Child in Brooklyn	p. 90
Leaving Hawk Mountain	p. 92
Lorimer	p. 93
Grafton	p. 95
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